to a stranger
by queenchesh
Summary: AU: Ben Solo, now Kylo Ren, is a businessman estrange from his family. That is, until, he elopes with a backpacker named Rey and is forced to make good on his wedding vows and reconnect with his parents. / The Organa-Solo family feels. [Complete]
1. Chapter 1

—or au in which Ben Solo, now Kylo Ren, is a man estrange from his family. That is, until, he elopes with backpacker Rey and is forced to make good on his wedding vows and reconnect with his parents.

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 **title:** to a stranger

 **genre:** hurt/comfort, family

 **rating:** t

 **fandom:** Star Wars

 **couple(s):** rey/ben, leia/han, squint-finn/poe

 **Inspiration:** I read the first page of Courtney Love's mother's biography. It opens with Courtney telling her mother that she's married and pregnant and her life is going to be grand. Also, this is basically how my dad met my mom's parents. Yet, I was three months in processing already.

 **Otherwise:** I posted this at 4 a.m., so I refuse to be held liable for grammatical mistakes.

* * *

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It's Sunday, Leia Organa is up early as is her nature from her military days. She makes tea, gets dressed and goes about her rare day off with endless possibilities. Her email pings with a few reminders and party invitations she would sort through later. She has a message from Han, left at three a.m., asking her if she would be interested in dinner when he gets back into town next week. She might accept, but dinner with her ex-husband rarely ends how she plans.

By noon, the day is turning out to be an uneventful one and she's reading a book when her phone starting ringing. She reaches for it blindly, but nearly drops the book when she glances at the screen.

The number is unknown, but Leia can't help the little jolt she gets when she sees it. The area code is for New York, and despite countless contacts, Leia can name only one person from New York she really wants to speak to.

She answers and is immediately met with a harsh voice, albeit hesitant voice, "Mother?"

 _Ben._

"Ben," she says, her awe seeping into her voice. She folds her book closed on the couch beside her. "You still have my number?"

"I, uh, I had to look it up. I tossed my old phone and everything in it when I left." He confesses, sounding guilty about the fact. She hangs on his silences, measuring them like she measured every year she went without speaking to him. "I wanted to talk to you. I'm going to be in town soon and I was wondering if you wanted to get together for lunch sometime this week?"

"Well, yes, yes of course," Leia says eagerly. She can feel her heart aching at his words. Her son, he's come back to her. "I would love that."

"There's something else," Ben says more slowly, almost painstaking. Leia waits out his hesitance and notes the edginess in his voice. "There's someone I would like you to meet."

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"He's _what_?" Han shouts over Skype later that night. It's bright, wherever he is, a stark white-out of snow and wind. Han has the hood of his parka up around his ears, but Leia can still see his furious pink face engulfed in all that fur.

Leia can relate to his initial outburst, but after having a few hours to mull it over, she's accepted the idea. "He's says they met when he was traveling."

"So, you meet a girl when traveling. That doesn't mean you marry her!"

Leia raises a brow at this. "You met me when you were traveling."

"Beside the point," Han says accusatively, speaking with his hands now. The bad connection capturing only occasional freeze frames of his motion. "We were together for three years before we tied the knot. How long did he know this girl? Three days?"

"Two weeks."

Han is quiet for a long moment, expression forlorn and portraying the same dread Leia had earlier on the phone with Ben. "Is she pregnant?"

"He said no. I didn't even have to ask. He just did that thing where he says all this important information in a rush and hopes I don't get mad." She is annoyed, but secretly happy about her son's irritating trait. Han looks less than pleased.

"I thought you said you were _watching_ him."

"I was, but he's a grown man now, Han. It's not right for me to be keeping an eye on him like I had been." She takes a long drink of her tea. "And my last spy quit because he fell in love—apparently, with her best friend, as I'm told."

"He knew?" Han muses, shocked.

"He always knew." Leia put down her empty mug, rubbing her temples. "Can we really blame him, Han, for not wanting to share his life with us?"

"No, I guess we can't." Han says finally.

"I didn't want to upset him and have him change his number and contact information again. I just had to let him talk and invite me out to lunch, there was nothing else I _could_ do."

There's a static of interference for a moment and when he's back into focus, he says, "I'm surprised you're not blowing a gasket."

Secretly, she is.

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Ben had said over the phone that he might move back to California. The thought has Leia almost giddy as she heads out and drives twenty minutes to the outside café Ben had suggested to her.

The sunny weather is keeping, despite the impending winter, so Leia covets a table in the far corner of the café and orders tea to wait. It was a more out-of-the-way place and she remembers the name for the countless take-out bags Ben had brought home as a teenager.

He wanted to meet on territory he was familiar with, in a place where he felt in control. Leia could sympathize.

Ten minutes go by, Leia's beginning wondering if they are going to show, when she hears the hostess greet a table of two and then a voice, a woman with an accent, say: "Our party's already here."

When Leia turns, she sees the couple approaching her. He looks different from the photos that had been given to her, in those, Ben had been all sharp suits and glaring eyes, on the move and plowing through city streets with purposeful, long strides. Now he looked more like himself. Her Ben, her son, tall and broad shouldered, dressed in all black with his long hair hanging over his ears.

"Hi mom." He says quietly, eyes taking her in as she does to him.

Leia pushes back her chair and stands. "Ben." She longs to pull him into an embrace, but Ben seems conflicted, posturing and body language reading a very clear message of _no_.

She forces smile. _Another time,_ she promises herself.

Ben looks down to his hand, clasped tightly onto his wife's—her daughter-in-law's—hand as if he may flee otherwise. His knuckles are white with effort, but the girl's face portrays none of this and she leans against him, comfortably. She seems to be taking in the moment as well, both present and distant at the same time.

"Mother, I want to introduce you to my wife Rey." Ben leans towards her in a gesture, shifting the spotlight. She's nearly a head shorter than Ben, but her compact form made her seem smaller in comparison. _She's pretty,_ Leia thinks, and hopes her smile reaches her eyes.

"Hello," Leia greets, unable to fend off her immediate caution, and the girl shakes her hand when she offers it. Her hands are callous, nails neatly clipped, and deliver a strong grip. _Worker's hands, like Han's._ Her hair is brown, shot through with sunlight, judging by her sun-darkened skin and her clothes were well-worn, tee shirt and jeans. And a pair of boots that looked like they had seen the military.

Leia catches Ben out of the corner of her eye, watching the two of them as if, at the first sign of trouble, he would grab Rey and flee the scene. "It's great to meet you."

"It's great to meet you." She says, her accent—British—catching at the end, nervous. "Kylo's told me so much about you."

 _There it is,_ Leia muses but is unsurprised that the girl knows Ben by another name. According to public record, Ben had not gone by his birth name for the last ten years. It had hurt, finding out that her son, _Ben Organa-Solo_ had become _Kylo Ren_ with a few clicks of a mouse and a couple hundred dollars. It was something she had to _accept_ but this was her _Ben._ And this girl only fed to the gap between them, calling him by his new name.

Her lips part to say something, she's not sure what, but Ben cuts her off.

"She knows I changed my name." Ben says, hurriedly. "Can we just—?" He gestures to the table and they all quickly take their seats. The waiter comes by, takes their drink order, and Rey immediately busies herself with the menu as if it gives them privacy.

Leia fights her growing annoyance she feels at the girl's presence, and her intrusion in this moment she's dreamed about for years. She has to remind herself that these people aren't her soldiers; she cannot order the girl to leave. Especially since Ben wants her here so desperately, it's something else Leia would have to accept.

Currently, the pair is both looking down at the menu, Ben pointing out foods to her and whispering.

"How have you been?" she asks, and Ben jars, looking up from the girl's menu to stare at her.

"Good," he says voice deep and rough. He clears his throat. "Better. I have been feeling a lot better."

"That's good." Leia nods to this, gauging for more with her eyes and notes the girl's cringe.

"Traveling helped me clear my head a lot." Ben says, but stops as if unsure how to continue. "It helped me . . . realize things. How have you been?"

"Great." Leia wants to replay the last ten years for him, but pulls herself back, hard. She wants to tell him that her and Han are seeing each other again, that she finally bought that house she wanted, that she made five-star general, but she's afraid.

"This place hasn't changed a bit."

Leia's excitement gets the better of her.

"Will you be seeing more of it?" Leia asks and Ben looks at her, looks at Rey, and gets up, knocking into the waiter and sending three water glasses tumbling. Luckily, none of them fall off the tray and shatter, but Ben carries on apologizing and excuses himself to the restroom.

Leia watches him go, dejected and cursing herself for springing the move on him so soon.

"He's really nervous." Rey says quietly. She has her menu closed on the table and is leaning back in the chair. "He tried to bunk out this morning." Leia's mouth twists at the British slang, but turns her attention back to the girl—Ben's _wife_ —her _daughter-in-law_ —a perfect stranger _._ Their relation was hard for her to wrap her mind around.

"He does that." She admits, recalling a particular occasion when Ben had refused to attend his own birthday party.

"I know," Rey says, she fights a smile and then her expression becomes very serious. "General Organa, I just want to let you know that I don't mean to intrude at all in your reunion, I, he asked me to come here with him today. For moral support."

Leia nods and, she'll admit it helps, but Leia is not sold on the idea of her. The girl has shown up married to her son that she had not seen in almost ten years, it was not an amiable position. "He told me that you wanted him to do this." Leia ventures and senses that the girl is not as sensitive as Ben is on the issue. "You told him to call me and schedule a meeting?"

"Yes,"

"Was it because you wanted to meet the parents, or?"

"I thought it would be good for him." She says, sounding, at first, unsure.

"He said you very adamant to it. And I know Ben; he doesn't do anything unless he wants to."

The girl blushes a little. "I never had a family of my own. I've been bounced around foster homes until I was eighteen." _Ah,_ Leia waits for what's next, the longing for a family, the disappointment of finding her at the end of it. She is not expecting, selflessness. "I wasn't going to let my husband give up on a family when he has a chance to have a relationship with them."

 _My husband,_ she says it with a claim of ownership, of love. As if she's a guardian instead of a spouse; keeping Ben safe from himself.

"He must love you very much." Leia says, but it sounds unkind and coarse. She surprised to see the girl wind up so quickly to defend herself; the, at first, kind hazel eyes igniting with fire.

"He does, and I love him." She declares, eyeing Leia like she expects her to challenge it.

The tension dissolves when the waiter returns with three new water glasses and a quick nod before retreating again. Ben is still nowhere in sight.

"I think he's afraid. Of what exactly I'm not sure, but I've never seen him like this." Rey says slowly, the tautness ebbing from her voice as she speaks. "Kylo's never been scared of anything. He was scared to come here today and I think that's because of you and his father." She pauses. "I think he's afraid of messing up, so he's looking for a way for the day to mess up before he can."

"I noticed." Leia watches the girl, threading her fingers. "He'll be worse when he sees his father."

The girl meets her for match. "Then I'll go with him to that meeting too, and he'll get through it."

Leia studied her again, the way she sat, how she held herself. Her shoulders drawn, her chin stuck out in defiance, the girl sat prepared for scrutiny the moment Ben left the table; she must have known her presence would not be well-received and prepared for it. She holds herself like she's used to it, expecting it, and Leia is, for a moment, affronted by this. Then again, it was smart to suspect it.

It seems, Ben had found himself someone resilient, a fighter. Leia wants to laugh.

"You probably weren't expecting this when you two got married."

"No, he told me. He told me everything and I made it one of the conditions that when we got married, he would meet you and his father again."

"Conditions?" Leia inquires.

"We realized that it was crazy that after two weeks we wanted to get married. So when he proposed, while also saying it was a flight risk, we decided to ask ourselves what we wanted in a partner and we went down the list of what we could and could not be for each other. We wanted to be married, but we also wanted to be smart." Even now, her face scrunches up. "It was all very scientific when it was happening."

"So the conditions of your marriage?"

"I said I would not marry a man that could not have a relationship with his parents."

"And his?"

"His conditions were that I would go back to college and finish my degree." Rey's cheeks darken. "And that I cannot divorce him after I realize what a prat he really is."

At this, Leia laughs. "He said that?"

"He's so insecure sometimes." Rey shakes her head. "Sometimes it's funny."

"He is dauntingly insecurely confident."

"I know."

With the tension decreasing into idle chatter about Ben, he magically appears, his hair tousled and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but his expression is one of calm, almost meditative. He takes his seat by Rey, reclaiming her hand after a moment. "What did I miss?"

"We were talking about how we met." says Rey and that brings the first, honest to God smile to her son's face that Leia had seen in a long time.

Rey smiles broadly and Ben puts his face in his hand, dragging it down, but he was laughing all the same. A new waiter comes by to take their order before the story reassumes.

"— _so_ , my friends and I are in this pub called _Maz's_ in Ireland. And, we've been there, playing pool for a while, and we just saw Maz Kanata, the owner, and some workers boot out three men that were getting too rowdy. One of the barmen got thrashed pretty good, but he gets back to work, swearing and bleeding when this guy," Rey pats Ben's shoulder. "Walks up to the bar and demands a drink while the barman's trying to ice his face. So, of course, barman's not having it and starts threatening to kick him out too, Ben gets defensive, then the barman starts swinging and I have to jump in to save his life."

"You were crazy." Ben says accusatively.

"I'm not the American that tried to go to an Irish pub on Saint Patrick's Day." Rey punches his arm playfully. Leia is almost blinded by Ben's smile. "I did have to fend him off with a pool stick, but I saved you."

"Then you did, but I am confident that I would have won."

"Then after that you two just," Leia trails off. "Started traveling together?"

"Rey and her friends were backpacking across the United Kingdom, and I joined them." Ben says, shrugging.

The rest, it seemed, was history.

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Later that night, she Skypes Han who has been waiting with baited breath for the last sixteen hours since her last call when she confessed how nervous she was.

"She's British, from Westminster, I gather." Leia reports. "She's very smart, and funny, and well-traveled."

"Really now? He got himself one of those girls?"

"No, she's not one of those high-born types." Leia defends and tries to think of a way to describe Rey, but thinks better of it. "You'll see when you meet her. I think you and her will get along quite well."

Han makes a noise of agreement, but seems unconvinced. "They still honeymoon-in-love?"

"No more than you and I were, probably." Leia admits, thinking back on their exchanges as if she had not studied them with the inclination of a hawk. "They're comfortable around each other. They tease and play, but they seem to balance out, as Luke might say. Ben's always moving, but Rey seems, more steadfast."

Prematurely, Leia might even say that Rey is good for him.

"You like her." Han says quietly.

"Ben loves her. I think he really, truly does." Leia says, remembering her shock when she had realized it. The way Ben kept pulling her hand over to his mouth to kiss her knuckles, how he let her steal from his plate, how he smiled at her, all of his attention focused when she spoke. He was unabashed in his affection, and Ben had never been a fan of public displays.

"Leia, are you going to cry?" Han asks, measuring her silence. His face comes closer to the screen, eyes squinting.

"She brought our son back to us, Han."

Then Leia was crying, tears joy because of what happened today, what was happening _now_. This girl, Rey, had been able to do what they had given up hope could be done. She brought their son back to them, and for that Leia was sure she would be forever grateful.

"I'll be home soon." Han says, expression softening. "You think I'll like her?"

"You'll love her." Leia laughs, teasing. "Tell Chewie I said hi, alright?"

"Will do." The line cuts and Leia is left alone in her kitchen, but she's smiling as she shuts her laptop. Wiping away her tears, she threads her fingers behind her neck and sighs, content. She would have to call Luke soon and tell him how the meeting went. He had been so excited to hear about Ben's return.

Her phone buzzes, alerting a text and she's surprised to find one she had missed. Both from a new number she collected today.

 **Rey:**

 _He wants to know when Han gets back :)_

And then another that made her smile to herself.

 **Rey:**

 _I want to thank you for giving me a chance today. It meant a lot to both of us._

* * *

 **I might write more if the mood takes me.**

 **Lots of background in this AU.**

 **Ben/Kylo left home after a series of nasty fights with his parents over the years. After a few years apart, when Leia and Han divorce, everyone just kind of blames themselves for it, and don't know how to reconnect. After a stressful last day on an overseas business venture, Ben meets Rey and proceeds to cash in all his days off he had not used (Basically, six months paid vay-cay).**

 **Rey is an orphan who's never had a real family, despite her friends back in England. After making a venture out of her comfort zone/hometown, she meets a guy who's about to get hurt and decides to spend the rest of her life saving him.**

 **Hate brings up my review count, motherfuckers. Blacklist Reylo if you don't like it, seriously.**

 **-queenchesh**


	2. Chapter 2

—or au where Rey moves to America after eloping with a businessman on a backpacking venture turned romance novel. She now must navigate her new life with marriage, family and what her last name is now.

 **.**

 **title:** to a stranger

 **genre:** hurt/comfort, family

 **rating:** t

 **fandom:** Star Wars

 **couple(s):** rey/ben, leia/han, squint-finn/poe

 **Inspiration:** I wanted to see what Rey thought of all this crazy happening in the family. Rey and Kylo being domestic is my cocaine.

* * *

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She practices writing out her name on a separate sheet of paper when she's applying for her dual citizenship.

 _Rey Ren_ in inky black scrawl, messy and untrained cursive. She bites her lip tries again.

 _Rey_ she pauses and, tries another name on tangent. _Rey Solo. Rey Organa. Rey Organa-Solo._

Kylo watches her progress with a raised brow. She smiles at him, and sticks out her tongue. "Love you," she says and kisses the corner of his mouth; his frown quirks into a smile. "Just experimenting."

"Whatever you want."

With a steady hand on the dotted line, she writes: _Rey Ren._ She pushes the paper back over towards the tired looking man behind the counter and he rattles off a list of wait times, possibilities, and finally 'good day'.

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"If you really don't want to, you don't have to."

"It's time," he sighs into his pillow. "What if someone dies and then I'll feel horrible."

She scoffs and presses her cold foot against his warm leg, making him jump. "That's a horrible thing to say!"

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Rey stands in the doorway of the New York apartment, listening to the conversation from the other side of the door. Her hands are burning from the ceramic coffee mugs she had just prepared, Ben's sweetened with cream and sugar, and hers bitter to wake her up.

She daintily sips at it as she concentrates on Kylo's voice as he talks to someone over the phone. His mother. She calls him Ben.

She knows that Kylo has had problems with his parents in the past. She knows it was hard for him to talk to them, but Rey refuses to let herself feel bad about it. She wants him to be _happy_ and somehow she worked it into her mind that Kylo would never be happy unless he at least tries to reach out to his family.

" . . . I'm going to be in town soon and I was wondering if you wanted to get together for lunch sometime this week?"

He and his parents just had problems connecting that, with the added pressure of a wildly successful family and Kylo's general moodiness had not helped.

Such problems are what caused him to be estrange from his family for so long, leaving home at nineteen to go to college and then pursuing a career working at Snoke Enterprises, being groomed as the next head of the company and backing his boss's vicious mayoral campaign. His boss, a Voldemort look-a-like, had gifted Kylo with an additional three weeks off to settle into marriage life and demanded that they make an appearance at the company holiday party.

Rey shivers at the memory and quells her fear with another sip of coffee. It doesn't help. The man was a creep and nutter and Rey never wants to be within a fifteen-foot radius of him.

He had also been the one to send the flowers that arrived for her the very same day they visited. Kylo's co-worker, Hux, had sent the Keurig. Which Rey loves and has composed a thank you note for.

She is drawn from her reverie by hearing Kylo say, "There's something else. There's someone I would like you to meet."

Rey body checked the door in her rush into the bedroom, trying not to spill coffee or trip over a decorative pillow that had rolled off the bed in the middle of the night. She scrambles to stand in his line of vision, vigorously shaking her head and mouthing to him _no, no, no_!

Her husband ignores her.

"I'm married."

Rey feels the world cave in around her and she wants to scream.

"A few months ago, I just got back from Europe." He goes on explaining in a voice that is both sure and cutting, but terrified. For a moment, Rey doesn't even think that Kylo's mum—her mother-in-law—is even asking questions anymore. There's just a livid silence that cuts at Rey's confidence that this will all go well.

"You are terrible _,_ " Rey hisses to him. Kylo stares at her, expression deceivingly blank. "I am pitching everything you love. And your coffee."

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She leaves the coffee on the dresser for him because Kylo looks close to exhausting himself and Rey sits in the bedroom reading while she waits for him to calm down again.

Kylo is not exactly partial to panic, but there are certain situations that are triggering. This is one of them.

The conversation that progresses is awkward to say the least. Rey sips her coffee from the other corner of the bed and listens as Kylo continues the conversation from the en suite bathroom. She can hear him just fine as his voice seems to rise every now and again to make a point.

"—I was on a business trip in Ireland for the company and we started traveling together." She listens to him pause Rey is reminded of her own explanation she had had to give to Finn and Poe when she rung them that morning two month ago. The raised eyebrows, and _Rey,_ _are you sure_?

"She's not pregnant."

Rey's gut twists from the rest of the conversation and she wonders if she made a mistake.

Marriage has never been a priority for her, she never has been the kind to fall over her feet for a boy, but Kylo had been different. Then again, that's what everyone says when they fall in love—or take a particular fancy—that of all the ducks in the pond, this one is _different._ She one is hers. But he _is_ and Rey still cannot understand it. When she looks at him and sees a man, who's strong and funny and smiles at her like she's the sun.

Either way, she's a married woman now and getting her life on track has become the priority.

The only real regret Rey may have is how she would meet Kylo's parents.

 _They're not going to like me much._ She thinks, cuddling her cuppa to her chest. _I'm just a stranger to them, a stranger married to their son._

She voices this distress when Kylo gets off the phone, though his shoulders are tense, Rey cannot help but rage and he just takes it.

"Everyone's a stranger when you first meet them." He reasons, lying on his side in their bed, arms wrapped around her middle, looking like a sullen child. She rolls her eyes because he's a drama queen, and Rey isn't having it.

"That's beside the point Kylo, and you know it." She snaps and feels brief satisfaction when she sees him flinch at her words. She drives deeper; using her words to _cut_ through whatever reverie has him caught up now. "Kylo, I want them to _like me_. I didn't want your parents to meet me like this, I wanted you to talk to them first and then—"

"—and then what? Drop the boom-shell when we start acting nice again?"

"Can you see this from my point of view?"

Kylo finally pulls himself out of his own turmoil to realize what he's done and looks at her, and he mumbles his apologizes into her hip. Rey transfers her mug from her hand to the nightstand and crouches down, wrapping her arms around him and pressing kisses to the top of his head, his brow, his cheek, his lips, his neck. "I'm sorry." He whispers and Rey pulls him close so that his head is tucked under her chin.

"It's alright," she says and it's the truth. Even if Kylo's parents decide they don't like her, she'll live. She is starting a new chapter in her life in a new place, with new people and a husband. That's all she really needs. She has a family. She doesn't need the approval of her husband's parents to start one. She married Kylo, not Han and Leia. "Are you sure you want me to go with you?"

"You're the only force on this earth that's making me go." Kylo says drowsily. "I want you there. I've changed a lot in these last ten years. They're meeting me and they're meeting you. You're the newest part of me."

There's silence between them, and she asks, "When do we meet them?"

"My father is out of country on business," he murmurs, and throws his leg over hers, holding onto her like a koala. "We'll meet my mother on Wednesday for lunch."

.

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One more day in the city left, they walk around the Upper East Side neighborhood, window shopping and stopping at a Starbucks for coffees. Rey orders a dolce cinnamon latte and convinces Kylo to get one too. "I thought all British were supposed to like tea best." He joked.

"Well, I'm the exception. I belong here."

"Have you heard back from MIT yet?"

Rey shrugs. "I called this morning, but the dean of students was out again. My transcripts have been transferred in, I talked to financial aid office, blah, blah," she slides off her huge carpenter coat as they seat themselves at a booth, and Kylo smiles a little.

"You're excited."

"I am," she says, feeling a little giddy at the thought. "It's the best engineering school in the country."

"That's why you applied."

"It's also _expensive._ "

"Scholarships."

"And expensive."

"Don't worry about that now, try getting in first." They had already had this conversation when they had still ben arguing about her applying. Kylo, it seemed, spent every waking moment he wasn't speaking to her, thinking up ways to get her into college that year. Dually, impressed and thankful, Rey let him give her the needed push to hit 'send'. She watches the slowly melting whip cream seeping into a forthy mush on top of her latte and decides she can finally drink it.

There it was again, the little twists of her stomach. Her reasoning for quitting college—not because she wanted to, but because she had to—was quite simple: money.

Dreams of aeronautical engineering weren't cheap.

She knew why Kylo was pushing her to take classes; she knew why he was hinting at moving to Massachusetts. He was just like her; he was convinced it would make her happy. And it would. Working on and with aeroplanes was her dream, she wanted nothing more since she was a little girl and up until her teens she had been very vocal about her dream.

One foster father had told her to just be a stewardess. Poe told her to join the air force. Kylo shoved an MIT brochure under her nose the moment they landed in JFK.

She pushes that thought aside and smiles, but Kylo keeps staring at her. "You'll get in and we'll figure it out from there. You'll be fine, Rey."

She tugs at the bun she tied her hair up in this morning and thinks about school, thinks about England. College credits worked differently here, didn't they? Would she have to re-do her associates?

"Rey, relax, everything will be fine."

Yeah, he had said the same thing about meeting his parents.

Oddly enough, when she made her plan to force him to reunion with his parents, she had never envisioned herself meeting them.

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.

.

They land in LAX early the next morning and check into a hotel to get situated and sleep off the lingering jetlag. They would drive down to Kylo's hometown the next day and stay in town. Rey was getting dizzy from all the traveling, but at least, they had had a month together in the New York apartment, recovering from backpacking through Europe and basically enjoying their extended honeymoon.

There have never been rose-colored glasses on their marriage. They fought too often for a chance to lounge in the illusion of marrying someone perfect. They had traveled together, Rey had seen Kylo climb stark naked out of the channel, howling like a newborn.

Rey knew from the out the gate that Kylo could get insecure, could get angry, could get anxious and second-guess himself. Kylo knew Rey could get distant, could get stubborn, and got quickly defensive.

They fought when they disagreed, but they were a great team when it came down to it.

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.

.

Kylo pulls the car into park, twists the keys, unclicks his seatbelt and eases back into the driver's seat. Rey takes his hand and doesn't say anything for a moment, just waits as Kylo gathers himself up and takes a deep breath. His expression is deceptively impassive, but Rey knows him too well. She's seen that look. "I saw her when we were pulling in. She's sitting at the corner table outside."

Rey nods, and waits for him to say more. "I'll be with you the entire time."

"I know," he says, closing his eyes and his brows pinch in frustration. "I know." He says again, anxiousness seeping into his voice this time. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, you're nervous. You haven't talked in ten years, I get it. It's okay." Rey squeezes his hand a little and catches her husband's eyes. "Just know I'm with you and I'll be here with you."

"Alright," he nods and leans over to kiss her, before turning back to the door and climbing out of the car. He walks to the other side, meeting her as she's getting out and they approach the café. It isn't too crowded like he thought it would be, it isn't empty though either.

Kylo holds the door for her when Rey steps inside, welcomed by the scent of coffee and fresh baked pastries. The hostess smiles at her, "Table for two?"

Kylo steps in behind her, taking her hand by threading their fingers together.

Rey looks to the left, past the indoor tables that are mostly empty and into the open half of the restaurant, where the wall slides up like a garage door, into a gated outdoor area. Alone at a large table in the very corner of the outdoor area, she spots a woman with steel grey hair. "No, our party's already here." She indicates and tugs at Kylo's hand, and he keeps pace with her, his hand tightening and loosening occasionally. She kisses his shoulder and rubs his arm as they approach.

"Thank you," Kylo whispers.

 _Everything will be fine,_ she coaches herself and the woman turns to face her. Her eyes are like her son's, wide and inquisitive, and they take Rey in like she's slipping under the water.

* * *

 **I love this too much. It's becoming a problem.**

 **I prefer, Rey Solo or, even better, Rey Kenobi, but Kylo's not changing his name and Rey wants to change hers. Rey Ren.**

 **Thank you for all the lovely reviews and if you have anything particular that you would like to see, let me know, I'll think about it, and if I like the idea enough, I'll write it.**

 **—queenchesh**


End file.
